Abstract

War Trauma, Anxiety, and Resilience among University Students in the Gaza Strip

The aims of this study were to identify the types of the
traumatic experiences, to find the type of resilience factors, anxiety trait and state occurrence, and to determine the
relationship between exposure to the traumatic
experiences, resilience and trait and state among university
students. It is a descriptive analytical study; the sample
consisted of randomly selected 399 university students
enrolled in the main four universities in Gaza Strip (Al-Aqsa,
Al-Azhar, Al-Quds Open and Islamic University) at the
second semester of the academic year 2012-2013. We used
five questionnaires to collect the data; a predesigned Sociodemographic
sheet, Gaza Traumatic Events Checklist, the
State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, and Connor–Davidson
Resilience Scale.

This study showed that the most commonly reported
traumatic events were watching mutilated bodies on TV
(92.7%), witnessing the shelling and destruction of
another's home (47.37%), witnessing firing by tanks and
heavy artillery at neighbors’ homes (47.12%), and being
forced to move from home to a safer place during the war
(42.86%). Mean total traumatic events was 4.72. Anxiety
state mean was 46.62 and anxiety trait mean was 36.22.
The most common resilience concepts (most of the time/all
the time) were: God can help (91.7%), things happen for a
reason (90.3%), and I am proud of my achievements
(85.2%). Male students had significantly more total
resilience, more personal competence and more trust in
one’s instincts than female students. The results showed
that there was a significant correlation between total
traumatic events and anxiety state and trait. The results
showed that there was no significant correlation between
total traumatic events and total resilience, but there was a
positive significant correlation between total traumatic
events and trust in one's instincts, tolerance of negative
affect and strengthening effects. On the other hand, there
was a significant correlation between total traumatic events
and spiritual domain. There was a significant correlation
between anxiety state and total resilience and its subscales
except in spiritual dimension.

Our conclusion was exposure to previous traumatic events
due to Gaza war had long-term negative effects on
Palestinian university students which increased their mental
health problems. We recommend that students affair
should show brief students the nature of the course, the
institutional ethos, the subjects that they will be taught and
aspects relating to assignments, examinations, evaluation
and other academic requirements, and should also provide
therapeutic interventions for university students who suffer
from anxiety.